In my previous U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,464 issued Jan. 29, 1985, there is taught a filter system that includes a vessel having a filter media therein arranged such that the filter media can be scrubbed or rejuvenated within the vessel. This eliminates the costly supplemental vessels previously thought necessary for scrubbing or rejuvenating filter media. Other known filter systems involve translocating the media into a secondary vessel where the media is scrubbed and then returned into the primary vessel.
My above mentioned previous patent required that the filter media be supported on a first screen and that the scrubbing action occur in conjunction with a second screen means wherein the second screen means is located at the vortex of a toroidal flow pattern which is effected during the scrubbing action. The toroidal flow pattern in this previous patent is produced by a pump means having a suction and outlet arranged respective to one another and to the second screen means to produce a flow across the second screen means so that contaminants are scrubbed from the media, transferred into the water, and then the water and contaminants are forced through the second screen means and away from the vessel, leaving the scrubbed media within the vessel.
The present invention constitutes an improvement over my previous patent by the elimination of the second screen means, whereby one screen means supports the filter media and also provides an outlet for the scrub water rejuvenation of the media in a new and unobvious manner heretofore unknown to those skilled in the art.
A filter built in accordance with this invention is simple in design, low in cost, and efficient in operation. The filter of this invention is designed for filtration of dirty water containing primarily solids and low concentration oil, e.g. lake water, sea water, etc. For this particular filtration of dirty water, people today use the conventional sand filters because of their low cost as compared to a deep bed media filter. The purpose of this invention is to provide a novel filtration unit having a much more sophisticated and efficient technique than a sand filter.